Cuomo Knocks deBlasio Yet Again on Homelessness (NYP) “Why do editors fight with reporters? Because they have different roles,” Mr. Cuomo said when asked about the repeated public feuding between the two Democrats. But reporters and editors—known to shout in the newsroom now and then—typically don’t put their disagreements in print, something Mr. Cuomo’s administration did in giving the New York Post a letter in which they alleged a gang-rape had happened at a city shelter, and which Mr. de Blasio’s administration did when it handed the New York Times an angry response to the state denying the rape had happened.* Activist-labor group calls on Cuomo to work with City Hall on homelessness (PoliticoNY)

* After two apparent squatters died in two separate Bronx fires, a de Blasio spokesman said several city agencies work to secure abandoned homes and find suitable homes for anyone living in them, the Timesreports:* After a homeless shelter resident was killed by another, the de Blasio administration announced steps to increase security at 27 shelters and to add medical staff to help identify people with mental illness,the Times reports:

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The NYT Should Have "New York" Forcibly Remove From Its Name

City Room, a Blog With a Broad Mandate, Is Retiring (NYT) The result was City Room. It debuted on June 14, 2007, “a news blog of live reporting, features and reader conversations about New York City.” Now, eight years, 20,000 posts, 425,000 reader comments and perhaps 100 million clicks later, City Room has an announcement to make: This is our last post. The reasons are mostly boring journalism-business stuff. In 2007, blogs were the wave of the future. At its blogmaniacal peak, The Times had about 80 of them.

But Times blogs run on a different publishing platform from the rest of the Times website, and eventually we realized they were creating a lot of extra work. Now The Times has only about 20 active blogs.*

At the same time, the mayor would eliminate the 421-a tax break for luxury condominiums, a booming market that needs no support from the city, especially in Manhattan. One problem is that he would give excessively long tax breaks to developers of other apartments, if they provided more low-cost housing. Instead of the 20 to 25 years granted now, developers would get up to 35 years. That is a long time to go without paying their normal share of city taxes.

The Daily News like de Blasio 421-a Plan Ignores the Tax Give Away and Corruption Arrests in Albany

"Take, for example,the hotly contested 421-a tax break issue. (NYDN Ed) Designed to encourage housing construction at a time when the market was in the doldrums, the law offers benefits to developers that are now too generous. Its formulas need to be rewritten — but neither the Senate nor the Assembly crafted a bill to achieve the objective. Nor did Cuomo. De Blasio stepped into the vacuum on May 7, delivering to Albany a complex plan to adjust the breaks and to use them more effectively as a catalyst for affordable housing production. The product of consultations with housing advocates and developers, de Blasio’s scheme thoughtfully balanced economics and social policy."

Affordable Housing Invented By Elected Officials to Protect Them Against 421-a Gentrification Push Out

De Blasio short of lowest-income housing goals so far (Capital) de Blasio’s administration has, so far, fallen considerably short of its goals for producing housing affordable to New York’s poorest residents. Between the start of 2014 and the end of March, the city says, it closed on financing for nearly 18,400 affordable apartments—some to be preserved, others to be created from scratch. Less than 15 percent of those units, or about 2,700, are for residents earning salaries considered to be “very low” and “extremely low” income. That’s well below the targets of the mayor’s ambitious housing plan, which seeks to create or preserve 200,000 apartments in a decade. The plan says 20 percent of those units should be for those two lowest-income brackets, which top out at less than $42,000 per year for a family of four—or half the area median income. So far, just 14.5 percent of the units the city has closed on since the mayor took office have met those standards. That’s worse than how former mayor Michael Bloomberg did, at least during the three-year period for which reliable data is available. Between fiscal years 2009 and 2011, there were about 38,600 affordable apartments built or preserved in New York City,according to a report from the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. Of that, 19.8 percent were affordable to families making less than 50 percent of the area median income.

City and state officials--who work for the public, remember--have, in service of developer Greenland Forest City Partners, contributed to a deceptive, misleading portrayal of the affordable housing in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. They would hardly mention that subsidized units are skewed toward households earning six-figure incomes, as I described in a long article last year for BKLYN Yesterday came a press release (also, at bottom) for the 23-story 38 Sixth Avenue, aka B3, located at the southeast corner of the arena block, Work Begins on 38 Sixth Avenue at Pacific Park Brooklyn: Keep your eye on the ball. The project was originally supposed to be 50/50 affordable/market rentals, then approximately 35% subsidized after 1930 condos were added to the 4500 rentals.

NYT Discovers NY's Shadow Government Of Lobbyists in Washington, DC?

The Lobbying Bonanza (NYT Op-Ed) The success of lobbyists representing the political agenda of the corporate sector in Washington is transforming the landscape of the city itself.

The Paper That Found Rubio's 4 Parking Tickets Can't Find How Lobbyists Have Changed NY's Government and Politics?

Even With Lobbyists Play A Key Role In Both Silver and Skelos' Arrests

NYT Reports On Landlords and Developers Buying Up Bed-Stuy But Ignores the Cancer (421-a) Driving the Gentrification Market

In Bed-Stuy Housing Market, Profit and Preservation Battle (NYT) A tall and slender man of 60, he has lived several blocks from the cleaners for close to a year now, during which he has watched investors and developers canvass the streets looking for properties from which they might extract significant profits. “They’re up and down here every day,” he told me, as he recounted getting approached by someone who offered him money to unearth information about the owners of a neighboring townhouse. It is standard in Bedford-Stuyvesant to see posters calling on locals to join the dubious mission of turnover.

“If you find someone who want to sell you will get up to $20.000.00 for finder fee,” reads one, somewhat inexplicably. In response to all of this, fliers in the neighborhood recently warned older black homeowners, many living in brownstones passed down through generations, to protect themselves from getting bilked by predatory, and by implication, racist real-estate interests. (“Free leg or thigh if you sell your grandma’s deed!” one of them proclaimed. This particular enticement to fury ran under the headline “Landgrabbers Realty Corp.,” and featured a drawing of a drumstick.) It is hard to overstate the acquisition frenzy that hangs over Bedford-Stuyvesant, and to reconcile it with some of the realities that persist in the neighborhood, where the felony assault rate is more than three times what it is in Park Slope. When I met Mr. Leow and his team last week — a team that includes a young broker named Mipam Thurman, the brother of the actress Uma Thurman, who told me he had to move to Flatbush because he couldn’t afford to buy anything in Bedford-Stuyvesant — they showed me a house on Lafayette Avenue that had just gone into contract for slightly under the asking price of $1,550,000. * Anti-Gentrification Fliers Plastered Throughout Stuyvesant Heights in Bed Stuy (Brownstone) *

At the same time, the mayor would eliminate the 421-a tax break for luxury condominiums, a booming market that needs no support from the city, especially in Manhattan. One problem is that he would give excessively long tax breaks to developers of other apartments, if they provided more low-cost housing. Instead of the 20 to 25 years granted now, developers would get up to 35 years. That is a long time to go without paying their normal share of city taxes.

The Daily News like de Blasio 421-a Plan Ignores the Tax Give Away and Corruption Arrests in Albany

"Take, for example,the hotly contested 421-a tax break issue. (NYDN Ed) Designed to encourage housing construction at a time when the market was in the doldrums, the law offers benefits to developers that are now too generous. Its formulas need to be rewritten — but neither the Senate nor the Assembly crafted a bill to achieve the objective. Nor did Cuomo. De Blasio stepped into the vacuum on May 7, delivering to Albany a complex plan to adjust the breaks and to use them more effectively as a catalyst for affordable housing production. The product of consultations with housing advocates and developers, de Blasio’s scheme thoughtfully balanced economics and social policy."

Affordable Housing Invented By Elected Officials to Protect Them Against 421-a Gentrification Push Out

De Blasio short of lowest-income housing goals so far (Capital) de Blasio’s administration has, so far, fallen considerably short of its goals for producing housing affordable to New York’s poorest residents. Between the start of 2014 and the end of March, the city says, it closed on financing for nearly 18,400 affordable apartments—some to be preserved, others to be created from scratch. Less than 15 percent of those units, or about 2,700, are for residents earning salaries considered to be “very low” and “extremely low” income. That’s well below the targets of the mayor’s ambitious housing plan, which seeks to create or preserve 200,000 apartments in a decade. The plan says 20 percent of those units should be for those two lowest-income brackets, which top out at less than $42,000 per year for a family of four—or half the area median income. So far, just 14.5 percent of the units the city has closed on since the mayor took office have met those standards. That’s worse than how former mayor Michael Bloomberg did, at least during the three-year period for which reliable data is available. Between fiscal years 2009 and 2011, there were about 38,600 affordable apartments built or preserved in New York City,according to a report from the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. Of that, 19.8 percent were affordable to families making less than 50 percent of the area median income.

City and state officials--who work for the public, remember--have, in service of developer Greenland Forest City Partners, contributed to a deceptive, misleading portrayal of the affordable housing in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. They would hardly mention that subsidized units are skewed toward households earning six-figure incomes, as I described in a long article last year for BKLYN Yesterday came a press release (also, at bottom) for the 23-story 38 Sixth Avenue, aka B3, located at the southeast corner of the arena block, Work Begins on 38 Sixth Avenue at Pacific Park Brooklyn: Keep your eye on the ball. The project was originally supposed to be 50/50 affordable/market rentals, then approximately 35% subsidized after 1930 condos were added to the 4500 rentals.

Bagdad NYT and the Rest of the Media Sees Not Corruption in NY Real Estate . . .

While the Feds Indictments Connects the Dots Between Family Lobbyists and Albany Pols

Skelos Son's Glenwood Corruption Connection According to people familiar with the questions being asked by federal authorities, investigators are seeking to determine whether Senator Skelos exerted any influence in matters involving AbTech. They are also examining whether his son’s hiring as a consultant was part of a scheme in which the senator, in exchange, would take official action that would benefit AbTech or another company, Glenwood Management, a politically influential real estate developer that has had ties to AbTech. * .@edmanganotestified before grand jury probing @SenatorSkelos &amp;his son, was one of several LI pols to do so * Survey: New YorkMost Corrupt State NY Real Estate Uses Lobbyists Like Meara and Berlin Rosen to Do Their Dirty Work Protecting Themselves From the Law

Albany sunlight wars (NYP Ed) * Staking out a broad vision of ethics reform amid a swirl of other proposals in the capital, New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, called for an elimination of all outside jobs for state legislators and the end of a widely criticized system of per diem payments. He also wants to stretch legislative terms from two years to four. * Schneiderman also criticized Cuomo for refusing his request to issue a “standing order” authorizing the attorney general to pursue corruption without getting referrals from executive agencies. “The speech was the clearest in a series of public signs that Schneiderman intends to be more aggressive in his second term.” The Daily News: “While public campaign finance and banning all outside income are bridges too far for this page, the forward motion of Cuomo and Schneiderman puts to shame Heastie, Skelos et al.”

True News Who Watches the Watchman, DAs Conflict of Interests

Shame On the Daily News For Ripping Off True News Story About the DA's Misconduct

Daily News Punk Bill Hammer Rips Off True News

.@NYDNHammond on efforts to create a body that would oversee prosecutors' misconduct and mistakes: Who prosecutes the prosecutors? (NYDN) After wrongful convictions, time to create a commission that holds DAs accountable and repairs the justice system

Demands That The Feds Take Over All Police Homicide Cases, What About Political Corruption? Is There A Structural Problem With Local Borough DAs Offices Who Because of Their Close Working Relationship of the NYPD and the Political Machines That They Depend On to Elect Them. True News would like the Daily News to answer why Albany became an organized criminal operation? Where were the DAs? Why are the feds doing almost all of the indictments of elected officials Were are the DAs? Since lobbyists are working to elect DAs who is watching them? The DOI reported that the lobbyists were running the failed 911 phone system

Did any of them work with contractors to break the law, comptroller Liu asked for a criminal investigation The city's prosecutors ignored. Who is checking the millions of secret money going in luxury housing? Is any of the money buying apartment hidden drug money, who know the DAs give the big developers a free hand. DOI finds the Advance Group Broke the PAC and CFB laws fine their clients and the DAs look the other way. What happen to the investigation of another Advance Group client NYCLASS? What about the UFT attempt to hid the Advance Group's involvement in their United for the Future PAC? Advance and another consultant group Red Horse who worked for the UFT PAC worked for many other campaigns that the UFT PAC broke the law to help What about Speaker Mark-Viverito illegal help from the Advance Group, where are the prosecutors? Even now who will go after the individuals in the Brooklyn DAs office who put innocent people in jail?

True News Wags the NYP Again and Again

Yesterday True News:Pig Kruger Cries Because He Got Caught and is Going to Jail

Today's NYP Editorial:One sorry senator
(NYP Ed) What a wimp. That would be former state Sen. Carl Kruger, who
in federal court yesterday cried his way through guilty pleas on four
bribery and fraud charges. “I accept responsibility for my actions and
am truly sorry for my conduct,” Kruger sobbed to Manhattan Federal
Court Judge Jed Rakoff. Isn’t that what they all say? Translation: I’m so very, very sorry that I was caught, sir. Now won’t you pretty please go easy on contrite little ol’ me? 12/21/11